We’re completely obsessed with IT!We love what we do and we strive to stay ahead of new trends and technologies every day. We’re using this blog to share with you our passion and technology adventures that we experience through our work! If you’re as excited about technology as we are, feel free to comment on any of our post. And of course, if you ever have any questions about a topic we write about or your own IT issues reach out to us. We’re always just a few clicks away!
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These passwords are an open invitation to be hacked because they are the first login attempts would-be hackers use when trying to infiltrate a network.

When people have so many different passwords to recall each day (network, e-mail, online banking, etc.) it can become tiresome to come up with unique, secure passwords for every individual application. But relying on a simple or predictable password is tantamount to inviting a hacker to peruse your data. Safeguard your accounts by avoiding these easily guessed passwords.

Large financial firm hires Cybrix to conduct large scale penetration testing of their network.

One of the nation's top mortgage companies has recently hired Cybrix Group's penetration testing services to ensure the vital security of their network. Big mortgage companies have a lot of money and personal information at stake, which means they are prime targets for hackers and cyber security is one of their largest concerns. They've trusted us to use our expertise to find the gaps in their armor before the hackers do so they can fortify their system and avoid costly security breaches.

While we believe that there are many situations that demand exceptional, professional IT support, we also believe that basic IT security is a necessity for every business no matter their size or resources. That's why we created a basic IT Security Guide full of security tips to share some of our knowledge with small business owners.

A recent article on CFO.com entitled, “Inside a Cyber Attack,” caught our attention and we’re sharing it with you because, as soon as we read it, we were reminded that the protector has to be perfect all the time while the attacker has to be lucky only once. This article is about a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on Yola, a global company offering do-it-yourself website building and hosting services. A DDoS is a systematic attack from thousands of computers all over the internet that send requests to a company’s servers at the same time, overwhelming and crashing them. In Yola’s case, the DDoS caused an eight-hour outage—so all of Yola’s customers who rely on Yola for their websites, eCommerce stores, social networking pages and more were also down. The impact of this crisis was immediate—lost revenue, lost credibility, huge inconvenience. It’s an IT (and a PR!) nightmare.

Disaster Recovery: Good spend or IT trend?

MSPmentor's annual report of managed services reported that the most popularly offered IT service in 2011 was Business Continuity/Disaster Recovery. While we at Cybrix Group also offer Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Planning and Support, this report surprised us. We would have suspected the services that meet the more urgent issues, like Cyber Security or Managed Network Services, would have topped the list. We wondered, 'Are Disaster Recovery Services a trend?'

We’re so excited to share the good news! We’ve been nominated for an award at the BizTech Innovation Summit Awards & Expo of 2012 in the category ‘Best Collaboration’ for our work with a multi-site Tampa Bay-based podiatry practice, Ankle + Foot of Tampa Bay! While we meet Ankle + Foot as a result of unfavorable circumstances (they were victims of data breach—they didn’t know how much data was compromised or even which records were affected!), our relationship has blossomed into a collaborative, on-going partnership. Now that we’re almost finished with remediation efforts, the focus of our efforts have transitioned from reactive initiatives to proactive activities—we want to make sure this thriving practice never experiences disaster again!

When it comes to your business, Cash is King. Positive cash flow drives your business and cash on hand gives you the cushion you need to grow, invest, survive economic downturns, pay bills, manage emergencies and take advantage of opportunities. Of course, you make money by increasing your revenues, but you can also make money by decreasing your costs. When it comes to your IT department, for instance, did you know that there are number of cost saving tips you can implement quickly? It’s all about taking stock of your:

Most people (even the technically savvy) aren’t getting the most out of their function keys—if they even use them at all! If you don’t realize right away what I’m talking about, it’s those keys at the top of your keyboard like F1, F2 and so on. These keys are programmed to save you time by performing a specific function, or maybe even more than one if you use them in combination with ALT, CTRL or SHIFT!

Here is a quick guide to tell you each key’s pre-defined function. I am sure you’ll see that some of these keys can really help you in your daily tasks!

When you go to the doctor for a checkup, your physician may talk with you about your health and your risk factors so that you can make informed decisions and put preventative measures in place before you get sick. What about your business? You can’t take it to the nearest clinic and put it through a typical checkup, but that doesn’t mean your business’ health isn’t subject to its own set of risk factors. The risks associated with certain regulations like PCI or HIPAA compliance are easy to spot, but what about the tougher-to-identify risk factors that could slow cash flow or create unplanned expenses?

Did you know that statistics show that 43% of businesses who experience a PCI breach go out of business in the first year after the breach and 95% within five years? You might think your business is too small to attract the attention of a hacker but are you willing to risk your business to that assumption?

I’ve been a financial executive for many years and have served in organizations of various sizes in different industries. A rite of passage for all finance executives, especially CFOs, is the annual budget. So much planning goes into the annual budget that entire books have been written on the subject. If you’re in the swing of your annual budget in preparation for 2012, here are a few points to consider when it comes to weighing the importance of IT projects for your 2012 budget. IT costs may be the second largest component of your budget after payroll/benefits, so the decisions you make will impact your bottom line—and hamper or accelerate business growth!

When it comes to budgeting for IT, there are a lot of factors to consider—some short term, and some longer term: maintenance and support costs, standard IT purchases, new IT projects or major system upgrades, vendor fees, testing and downtime… Yes, all of these elements are important if you’re a CFO or CIO and you’re deep into your budget planning. In my experience, though, there’s one area where many companies don’t have clear visibility: the cost of ‘keeping the lights on’ from an IT perspective. This is critical because your technology probably drives all of your business activities. If you disagree, think about the last time your computer crashed and you sat around for hours while it was being serviced.

There are only four days left in 2011, so I’m pausing to take stock of the year. As I look back, a few things really stand out but I have to say that the single most memorable moment of 2011 was when we learned that Cybrix Group had placed on the Inc. 500 list. Not only were we surprised to be in the top 100, we ranked 55th! I remember how excited we were when the results were announced; it was a great honor.

So you’re working on your budget and you’re ready to go to bat for the IT expenditures, upgrades and special projects on your list. It’s true, budgeting can be… challenging. As I write this, even the House is duking out details, holding up the passage of the government’s budget! While your budget probably isn’t close to the trillion dollars the US Government will need to function over the next nine months, it’s no less important! Budgets are about allocating resources and prioritizing spending. So how can you make sure you have what you need for the new year?